1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for process monitoring which monitors a flow of operations by control system comprised of plurality of processes combined functionally, and to a method of constructing a network diagram to be utilized by such a process monitor.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, a control system comprising plurality of processes, such as JOB in a computer, combined and coordinated functionally is equipped with a process monitor device in order to monitor a flow of operations.
In such a control system equipped with a process monitor, a network diagram indicating operative relationships among processes is displayed along with information concerning states of operation of each process coming from a process controller, so that an operator can readily comprehends progress and current situation of the operation by the system.
However, such a conventional control system has a fixed network diagram devised for an original configuration of the system, so that whenever the configuration of the system is to be modified, such that for instance the order of processes need to be revised or the relationships among processes need to be altered, another network diagram has to be devised newly by a manufacturer, which requires a great amount of works and time to be tolerated by a user.